By Tom Bragg, For Lootpress.com
Herbert Hoover ended the regular season playing some of its best football – scoring at least 40 points in each of its last seven games. That train has stayed on the tracks through the first two rounds of the WVSSAC Class AAA state playoffs with more lopsided scores against Elkins and Oak Hill.
Now the unbeaten Huskies, the No. 4 seed in the bracket, face their toughest task to date in 2024 – a semifinal trip on Friday to take on No. 1 Princeton (12-0) with a spot in the state championship game going to the winner.
The Tigers have been on a roll of their own, as most unbeaten teams who make it this far in the postseason are, but struggled early last week in the quarterfinal round before rallying past No. 8 North Marion for a 34-20 win as Daniel Jennings ran for 176 yards and four touchdowns while quarterback Chance Barker completed 11 of 12 passes for 166 yards and a score.
“They can beat you in multiple ways,” Huskies head coach Joey Fields said. “They can drive on you and hand the ball to their running back, they can beat you with explosive plays too with the receivers they’ve got out wide too. They’re big up front. The quarterback [Barker] can really throw the ball from everywhere on the field, and No. 1 [Bradley Mosser] is a problem for anyone. And No. 23 [Jennings], trying to get him to the ground and stopping him is a tall task for our defense. We feel we’ve prepared well this week but of course you know there are going to be ups and downs in the game. Hopefully we can get enough ups to give ourselves a chance.”
Hoover has been led by its two big hitters so far this postseason, with senior quarterback Dane Hatfield and junior running back/receiver Blake Fisher making frequent visits to the end zone. Hatfield has accounted for six touchdowns in two playoff games. Fisher, meanwhile, caught 10 passes for 213 yards to go with four short touchdown runs to open the postseason against visiting Elkins, and last week against Oak Hill he scored three times – twice on the ground and another on a punt return.
“That’s a guy who has been in our program for two years and he works hard in the offseason – as hard as anybody I’ve ever had. He’s just been more comfortable [this season], stayed healthy and he’s an athlete. That’s a tough football player. I’d have liked to have had him a couple of years in the past. We’d probably be walking around with rings on our fingers. He’s a football player, man, and he’s a great kid. You don’t have to coach very hard when you have guys like that..”
Friday’s contest will be the first time Hoover has had to hit the road this postseason, but they do have some significant experience away from home both from this regular season and for the upperclassmen from playoffs past.
Two seasons ago the Huskies won three games away from Elkview en route to a Class AA state championship game appearance. Last season Hoover went on the road and beat East Fairmont to open the playoffs before losing at eventual runner-up North Marion.
Then this season, Hoover’s final two games of the regular season were on the road at Hedgesville – a nearly six hour trip from Kanawha County – and then at Weir – another almost four-hour drive from Elkview.
“You don’t plan to go undefeated, but we thought those two road trips back to back could help prepare us for the playoffs if we had to go on the road,” Fields said. “Of course [Princeton] isn’t four or five hours away, it’s just two, but it’s still getting on a bus and going to someone else’s place and trying to find a win.”
Fields said he likes his team’s temperament going into Friday’s semifinal game, and he feels like they’re prepared to go out and handle business. .
“There are three different kinds of teams,” Fields said. “There are overconfident teams, and that’s not us. There are lackadaisical teams – teams where you’ve got to beg them to work hard and play. Then there’s a team that’s all business and no matter what happens you respond and go to work. I feel that’s the team we have this year.”.
